The invention described therein derives from the principles of holography and/or integral photography. The Claimed Priority Patents and Applications disclose a basic principle of magnification and projection. This principle permits magnification and projection of 3-dimensional images uniformly in all directions, thereby overcoming drawbacks in the prior art. Based upon this principle, cameras are described, in their various embodiments, that photograph a scene and retain the 3-dimensional information therein. An editor is also described that would edit integral photographs and holograms containing the 3-dimensional information from the photographed scene. In addition, a theater is designed to project the magnified 3-dimensional scene that was photographed, upon a large screen to be viewed by an audience. Further, the projectors and screens are described in their various embodiments.
Within some of the embodiments of the camera and projector, specially prepared holograms are used as optical elements therein. Use of these holograms affords the advantage of being able to replace complex, bulky, difficult to manufacture, and expensive conventional optical elements needed to produce certain types of images during photography, magnification, and projection. In addition, some of the embodiments of the screen are themselves holograms. Unlike conventional projection screens used in current theaters, the screen described in the Parent Application is an active optical element that, when combined with the projection optics, causes light waves to emanate from the screen into the theater that are the same as though the 3-dimensional scene were real. Therefore, the viewing audience should not be able to perform any visual test to determine whether or not the projected 3-dimensional scene truly exists. The use of a specially developed holographic screen affords the advantage of replacing more conventional optical components used in screen fabrication.
In view of the above, it is therefore an object of the invention to provide methods of preparing the holographic screen.